Today Rogers and CIBC have announced the next step in making mobile payments the norm in Canada. Both parties are referring to this new program as “the future of mobile payments in Canada.” and it will allow customers with NFC enabled BlackBerry devices to spend up to $50 at any contact-less kiosk. Users will be able to connect either their CIBC Visa or Mastercard to the app and then start spending.

For any of you that are concerned with the security involved in these payments, you will be happy to know that it will require a specific “secure sim card” that will be arriving with new devices shortly, and any existing customers will have to go into a Rogers store to purchase one if they wish to use the app. Rogers is touting that they already have over 250,000 NFC enabled devices in the market and they are projecting to hit over 750,000 by the end of the year.

While Rogers has teamed up with CIBC to launch the BlackBerry version of the app, it is on CIBC to launch the Android, and eventually iOS, versions of the app on their own. Unfortunately it is uncertain whether or not this app will take off and persuade other banks and carriers to launch similar apps, but we can hope that this is the first step in the right direction.